


one step.

by wowsheshot



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, And a Hug, Angst, Attempted Murder, Backstory, Dick Grayson is a good bf, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Kidnapping, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleep Paralysis, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Torture, and a break, and therapy, percy needs help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowsheshot/pseuds/wowsheshot
Summary: ( TW: SUICIDE )Only one step.All she needed to do was move her feet that little to end all her pain, the excruciating type of pain that took your breath away, but her body was stuck in place, frozen.Her hands shakily held onto the rope wrapped around her neck. Looking down at her bare feet, as she stood on her bathtub’s edge, her mind was quick to go back to the first time she’d ever tried this.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Original Female Character(s), Dick Grayson/Persephone Moon
Kudos: 4





	1. die first.

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE ATTEMPT(S).
> 
> Just in case you want to picture Percy, her faceclaim is Victoria Peretti (Love Quinn in You & Nell Crain in The Haunting of Hill House) as an adult and Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven in Stranger Things & Enola Holmes in Enola Holmes) as a teen.

Only one step. All she needed to do was move her feet that little to end all her pain, the excruciating type of pain that took your breath away, but her body was stuck in place, frozen. Her hands shakily held onto the rope wrapped around her neck, tears falling on her cheeks though, now, they felt way too numb for her to notice. Looking down at her bare feet, full of bruises from yesterday’s training session, as she stood on her bathtub’s edge, her mind was quick to go back to the first time she’d ever tried this.

Thirteen years old, only thirteen, yet a knife was in her shaky hands, pointing at her throat. It would have been so easy, but after ten minutes of crying, trying to convince herself to do it, the echoing sound of the weapon falling on the floor filled the room. She didn’t really want to die, after all. She just wanted to stop feeling like this. Besides, things could be much worse. She was a lucky one, right? She sure was. Her parents were still together. Maybe they fought often, maybe her dad never learned from his numerous mistakes, but they were still together and that’s all that mattered, at least to her.

She didn’t regret dropping the knife then. She started working at her dad’s café and it was tiring at first, especially for only a fourteen year old, but then that day came by. God, everyone that came was always so old, but that time, it was a couple of kids. Around her age, she guessed, maybe one was older. They were joking around, she guessed, maybe playfully bickering. She could have guessed they were siblings, but they looked way too different from one another. Perhaps, adopted? Or just very close friends. Not that Percy knew the difference, she had neither siblings or friends.

When one of them approached her and pinned her to the wall behind her, that was when she realised she’d been staring at them the whole time. The reason she had no friends was clear, with the way her cheeks flushed a deep red and she froze. Quickly, she realised she could barely speak. Sure, she quickly stuttered out an apology, but it seemed like it wasn’t needed. They didn’t think she was being rude, apparently the girl with her face a bit too close to hers made a bet with the boy, saying she was sure Percy had a crush on her. Ruby, that was her name.

Though a weird first encounter, they came along often since then and Percy quickly ended up bonding. Arguably, the boy’s name was not as pretty as his friend’s, who would name their child Dick? Still, his pretty face made up for it and, as if that wasn’t enough, his even prettier personality was surely quite a bonus. Surely, she didn’t think that because she had a crush on him, why would anyone think that after all? They were just friends. even if, by chance, she happened to have a crush on him, being just friends was enough for her. And him.

Until it wasn’t.

It was him who confessed, in a little park in Gotham during a picnic he planned for just them. Sure, it wasn’t the best, but nowhere in that damned city was anywhere near being the best, and it was way better than most places anyways. It happened exactly while the sun hid behind the buildings, painting the sky a lovely shade of orange, colouring their skin golden, reflecting just how precious that “I love you” was to her. Percy doubted she felt this happy since she was born, and she promised to treasure that moment for the rest of her life. And she did, even when the memory became bittersweet.

It took so little for him to tell her his secret, that he worked with Batman, that he was Robin. She was grateful he trusted her enough with it, to her it meant he definitely took this seriously and that this whole thing wasn’t just for show. It was a reassurance she truly needed, that was for sure.

Still, as the days went by, an awful feeling started growing inside of her, a gnawing one at the pit of her stomach, chewing her insides with worry until it made her nauseous, physically sick, and worsening each day whenever she saw a newfound bruise on her beloved’s skin, whenever she touched him and he winced in pain, whenever his lips were cut, whenever one of his bones had been broken. She was left wondering how much was left until what he was doing would kill him. She did not want to hold his lifeless body, to have to attend his funeral, to have to go on with her life knowing her first and only love so far was never going to come back. Quickly, she came to a conclusion.

She wanted to die first.

The second attempt was at the age of sixteen, in her bathroom. The bathtub was filled with water, and she came in fully clothed, tears streaming down her face and helping keeping the tub well filled. Her head sunk under the water and she let go of her breath. Soon, she started counting. One, two, three, four, five, six... up to sixty seconds, she already felt herself get lightheaded. It was close, her heart was pounding out of her chest, but it was almost an automatic reaction, the one to take her head out of the water, gasping for air. The gasp soon turned into sobs, miserable sobs, a cry for help maybe, she wasn’t sure anymore.

She threw away the clothes she wore that day, seeing them was a painful reminder she failed. For the second time, at that. However, unlike the first time, God, she surely got the chance to regret not dying any sooner. To her, it was karma, the universe telling she was simply meant to die, that she deserved to be kidnapped and tortured for not doing so any sooner.

Well, literally.


	2. guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: KIDNAPPING,  
> TORTURE, MENTION/IMPLICATION OF SEXUAL HASSAULT & RAPE ON CHILDREN.

It all happened so fast. One second, she was happily walking home from a date and, the second, she was pulled into an empty alley, her mouth covered so she couldn’t scream out for help, and drugged. She fell into the man’s cold arms just like that, unable to fight back, not that she had a chance anyways: he was much older, taller and stronger than her, after all. He dumped her unconscious body inside of his car, then started driving.

When she finally gained back conscience, she was left alone, in the dark, basically glued to a chair, still unable to seek help. There was tape to keep her lips sewed shut, and while it was enough to silence her from speaking, it surely wasn’t enough to silence any of her thoughts. No, those were running wild in her mind, none being in any way comforting. She was left wondering if she was going to be one of the many poor little girls living in Gotham just like her. The ones she saw on the news with her mother, kidnapped and made into nothing but an object for some pervert’s pleasure until they got tired and threw them away like a child throws away their old favourite doll when their parents buy them a new one.

Thankfully, or not so thankfully, her kidnapper made it clear that was not what she was here for soon once he walked into the room. He wanted information out of her, specifically he wished to find out what was Robin’s real identity. The options were that, or torture. With that premise, the masked man was sure she would immediately tell him everything once he ripped her tape off. Instead, she stayed silent, painfully silent. It enraged him. It was supposed to be so incredibly easy.

What kind of sixteen year old decides torture over simply revealing a name, after all? She would be able to go home, see her family again and have a normal life. But no. She refused to talk, about anything, almost as if she had lost her ability to speak. Truth is, she would rather die than put Dick in any kind of danger. And he trusted her with his secret, she owed him this.

Besides, she did not mind dying.

It was painful, it never stopped being painful, as new scars formed as proof of what she was going through all over her body, but it felt like every day she got more and more numb. She doubted it was normal, to forget what feeling anything was like. All that was left was an uneasy feeling eating her alive from the inside, that was perhaps what was truly killing her rather than the torture. At first, she couldn’t pinpoint what it was. She guessed it was fear, it made sense, but calling it that didn’t feel right. Maybe it wasn’t enough to describe its intensity, so she tried terror. Still, it wasn’t it. Finally, after an entire month of nonstop torture getting worse and worse as her kidnapper got more and more impatient for results, she got it.

It was guilt.

Guilt, because Dick needed somebody to be around and a shoulder to cry on when needed but she wasn’t there. Guilt, because her parents must have been searching for her nonstop all this time but she was not there. Guilt, because she promised to be Ruby’s safe place whenever she needed to rant about her mother, which is something she knows she struggles doing, but she wasn’t there. Guilt, because she allowed this to happen. Guilt, because maybe she thought everyone needed her more than they actually do.

Dick will be fine by himself, her parents will be fine by themselves, Ruby will be fine by herself. It had been too long for any of them to have actually been affected, Percy was sure they weren’t even searching for her at this point. They never did. She was here, alone, and none of them truly cared. They never actually did.

Guilt, because she wasn’t dead yet.


End file.
